Barbara Townsend Lecture & Award

CAHEP welcomes nominations for a lecture and lecturer that focus on community colleges, gender in higher education, graduate education, and/or higher education programs and leadership/administration. The award recipient will present a lecture during a special session of the conference, to be coordinated by the committee chair, ASHE Staff, and award recipient.

About Dr. Townsend

Barbara Townsend served as the ASHE Executive Director and on many other committees, to improve the study of higher education for her higher education colleagues. Barbara was particularly well known for her research on community colleges, feminist studies, doctoral education, and higher education programs. In 1995, Barbara, Les Goodchild, and Bob Hendrickson co-founded the Council for the Advancement of Higher Education Programs (CAHEP). CAHEP and the larger ASHE community wanted to recall her spirit and enthusiasm for higher education programs annually with a lecture series in her honor.

Nomination Evaluation Criteria

When reviewing nominations, the awards committee will make decisions based on the following preferred and demonstrated attributes:

• Scholarship aligned to one or more areas of the nomination call (higher education programs and leadership/administration, graduate education, gender in higher education, and/or leadership in community colleges).

• Involvement with ASHE and/or CAHEP in the past.

• Demonstrated commitment to advancing higher education programs through scholarship, teaching, and/or service activities.

Award Timeline

• Early May: Awards Nominations Open

• June 30, 2025, 12:00pm Mountain/Denver Time: Awards Nominations close

• July-September: Committee review of nominations

• Late September: Notification to nominators of committee decisions

• Mid-October: Association-wide announcement of recipients

• November: Awards Ceremony during ASHE 2025 Annual Conference

Due to the number of submissions and the review process, no late submissions will be accepted; as such, nominators are encouraged to submit their nominations well in advance of this deadline. 

Nomination Requirements

To submit a nomination you will need:

• Name, Title, Position, Institution, Email, and Phone Number of Nominator

• Name, Title, Position, Institution, Email, and Phone Number of Nominee

• A nomination statement of up to 500 words explaining how:

  • the nominee’s scholarship has engaged deeply with one or more of the nomination areas (higher education programs and leadership/administration, graduate education, gender in higher education, and/or leadership in community colleges);

  • the nominee has been meaningfully and/or consistently involved with ASHE and/or CAHEP;

  • how the nominee’s scholarship, teaching, and/or service have demonstrated a commitment to advancing higher education programs;

  • a possible lecture title/topic.

Due to the increased number of nominations received in recent years, each nominee will be limited to one nomination. In the event multiple nominations are submitted, the committee chair will notify the coordinating nominators requesting they consolidate their nominations.

The coordinating nominator, as well as the award nominee(s) (and subsequently recipient(s)), must be current members of ASHE.

Questions about the award process can be sent to awards@ashe.ws.

Submit a Nomination

Conflicts of Interest

ASHE's Conflict of Interest Policy aims to ensure the integrity of the process. In establishing this policy, the Association sets forth circumstances that require ASHE members to refrain or recuse themselves from participation and circumstances where ASHE members need to consider whether the nature of their relationship creates the actuality or appearance of a conflict. 

To avoid conflicts of interests, current members of the Board of Directors, respective Council Executive Committees, and/or respective awards committees are ineligible to be part of the awards process, including nominating colleagues, being nominated, and writing letters of support.

Past Recipients

2024: Ellen M. Broido "Valuing Care Work in Higher Education Using Feminist, Disabled, Queer Lenses"

2023: Crystal R. Chambers "Climbing the Broken Ladder: Black Women in Executive Academic Leadership”

2022: Marilyn Amey (YouTube Link) "Beyond Competencies: Developing Adaptive Leaders for Post-pandemic Higher Education"

2021: Sydney Freeman Jr. (YouTube Link) "I’m a Higher Educationist, I’m proud, and I’ll say it loud: Embodying and embracing the future of higher education as a field of study"

2020: Xueli Wang (YouTube Link) "On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways"

2019: Sarah Rodriguez "Finding Voice and Power as La Profesora: Reimagining Higher Education Programs as Sites of Resistance"

2018: Jaime Lester "Gender Trouble in Community Colleges: Constructing a New Definition of Democracy's College"

2017: Pamela L. Eddy "Community College Leadership Frontires: Scouting and Developing Talent"

2016: Kelly A. Ward "Higher Education Leadership: Perspectives from the Pipeline"

2016: Lisa Wolf-Wendel "Higher Education Leadership: Perspectives from the People"

2015: Noah Drezner

2014: John S. Levin "Playing the Field: The Qualitative Researcher in the Community College"

2013: Linda Serra Hagedorn

2012: Robert M. Hendrickson

2011: Edward St. John

2010: Anna Neumann